The season unofficially kicked off this Memorial Day weekend means suntanned shoulders and Kool-aid smiles, baseball and barefoot races in the backyard. And to me, above all us, it’s living at the swimming pool.

Every morning as a kid, my dad chauffeured my sister and me in our Speedos and too-big T-shirts to our 8 a.m. swim practice. Fog rose from the pool as we stretched on deck, then reluctantly dove in.

Afterward, there were snacks and swim lessons, games of marco polo and shady forts built from lawn chairs. Time was irrelevant, except for the slow creep of the minute hand during rest period.

I’m so grateful for those idyllic days. And I desperately wish I could give them to my kids.

I can’t, though.

I’m not complaining about my job. I love my job. But when Memorial Day arrives, I do feel a swell of jealousy for stay-at-home moms.

While their days are tough, they get to spend them in the sun. I, meanwhile, get to feel guilty dropping my kids off in the confines of daycare.

Daycare offers wading pools and field trips, music class and a playground. But it cannot offer the summers of my childhood. It cannot offer swim lessons.

I hadn’t worried about lessons before, since happily my son has always been a little fish. Now, however, he could use some instruction in floats and freestyle. And I thought there was no way he’d to listen to me. (The other day he told me I couldn’t enter my own kitchen.)

So I began to daydream about swim lessons, a half hour on weekday evenings, when I could lie on a lounge chair and read, looking up to see my son delightedly bobbing with classmates. That is, until I realized my suburban pool teaches lessons only on weekday mornings.

Boo.

When are kids of working parents supposed to learn to swim?

I stewed for a day, trying to figure out how I could take my kid to a 9:30 a.m. swim class and still make it to work (I can’t), until my husband found evening lessons this spring at a nearby high school. My fantasy – albeit now sunshine- and lounge chair-free – resurfaced.

My son was eager for the lessons, requesting a pool with two diving boards. But his enthusiasm evaporated when his new instructor led her students away from their parents like a line of little ducklings. My son wouldn’t let go of my hand. And as much as he loved the water, he refused to blow bubbles or kick or glide like Superman.

I was pretty patient, after the lesson about changing my perspective on preschoolers. I sat with him at the edge and watched. And the next week, I got in with him. He did everything the other kids did. Only with me.

(I am probably a little too happy about that development, because it allowed me to relive my glory days as a lifeguard and swim instructor.)

Fingers crossed that my son one day actually takes a lesson without me. But the thought of my kids cooped up during the gloriously free months of summer still makes me sad.

Once they’re in school, I know, they’ll go to camp, where they can swim and play tennis and eat lunch in the sun. (And I’ll be jealous again, since as a kid camp seemed like the most glamorous thing ever.)

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